While it has neither the land mass nor the population of the region's largest states, the UAE is a giant in terms of its role in civil aviation in the Middle East
Julian Moxon/DUBAI
Dubai, the UAE's main commercial centre, has the busiest and fastest growing airport in the region as well as the most rapidly expanding airline, Emirates. While oil wealth still provides 18% of Dubai's income, tourism has taken its place as the major growth area.
Evidence of the dramatic changes under way is seen just outside Dubai, where a huge free trade area and a specialised internet "city" are becoming firmly established. Couple this with a population that is 75% expatriate, and it is not difficult to see why the demands on air traffic management (ATM) are growing daily.
Emirates Air Traffic Control Centre (ACC) handled 260,000 instrument flight rules (IFR) flights in 2000 - about a sixth of the number handled by the London ACC. This has put the federal air traffic services system - based at Abu Dhabi - under relentless pressure.
While the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) is coping with the growth, there are major challenges ahead. UAE air navigation services director Riis Johansen says: "We are not afraid of meeting them. This is a region going through a phenomenal transition and as the oil business gives way to more general development, we expect air traffic density to increase accordingly."
To cope with the annual 8% growth in passenger traffic, a second terminal is to be built at Dubai airport, doubling capacity to 25 million passengers a year, while Abu Dhabi is to receive a second runway, parallel to the first, and a new terminal. As it is, the airport handles 4,800 international departures a month, a further 2,000 come out of Abu Dhabi, and more depart from the other international airports in the UAE - Sharjah, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah and Al Ain.
Emirates will double its passenger capacity in the next five years as the arrival of new aircraft continues its strong growth. In January 2003, it will take on its first Airbus A340-500 to give it access to the USA, South America and Australia. It will also be the first airline in the Middle East to acquire the 550-seat A380 - planning for which is being included in the design of Dubai's second terminal.
Of the top 25 city pairs operated from the Middle East to Asia, 16 originate from UAE airports, while the busiest routes between the Middle East and Europe/Asia are Dubai-London and Dubai-Karachi respectively.
Considering UAE the regional hub, the GCAA has taken an innovative approach to developing the ATS system. It has introduced the ICAO Required Navigation Performance-5 (RNP-5) in its airspace above 10,500ft (3,000m). RNP-5 is the latest standard for instrument navigational accuracy, used by Europe to define basic area navigation standards.
"We are the first state in the region to introduce RNP-5, which we see as essential to providing more airspace capacity," Johansen says. A number of other Middle East states will introduce RNP-5 on airways to Europe from 22 March this year. But Johansen remains worried about the time it will take for full regional implementation. "The UAE has a one-way airways system [which provides double the number of airways] and is still the only Middle East country to have adopted RNP-5.
"From the ATM point of view, introduction of RNP-5 enables us to establish a dual-carriageway in the airspace previously taken up by the equivalent of a one-lane road. This gives a large improvement in both capacity and safety. It is of particular importance in our airspace, where most of the traffic is climbing or descending," adds Johansen. The GCAA was also the first authority in the region to introduce satellite navigation as a supplementary means of navigation, and GPS non-precision approaches are already published for Dubai.
One of the main difficulties facing the despatch of aircraft towards Europe is the application of procedural coverage on the airways to Europe, which means that 10min longitudinal separation, or around 129km (70nm) per aircraft, is required west of the Emirates flight information region (FIR). "By comparison we use 8km radar separation throughout the FIR," says Johansen. While some countries in the region are busy upgrading their ATS systems, the GCAA remains concerned about bottlenecks between the Gulf and Europe.
Despite that, the figures for departure delays would "make a European controller's eyes water," says Johansen. "During the fourth quarter of 2000 we had 24,900 international departures from the UAE without a single delay, and in the third quarter there were only 12." That amounts to an average of 0.4s per departure, "which isn't bad - but we're still not celebrating because the statistics hide two regrettable facts: if procedural separation was replaced by radar separation minima all the way to Europe there wouldn't be any delays - or flow control - at all. Furthermore, very few flights would be cruising at uneconomic levels, as they are now".
Robust flow management measures have been implemented to alleviate the problem, and delays were cut by two-thirds during 1999 despite a 15% increase in traffic. Part of the reason for this is Emirates' practice of planning for up to 12 possible routes for each flight, and airspace planning criteria have also been tightened. "We calculate our exit point from procedural airspace very carefully to try and ensure that UAE departures arrive at precisely the right time. This means we can actually increase the number of flights through the area from 4-6 per flight level," says Johansen.
The arrival of reduced vertical separation minima in late 2003 will ensure aircraft are flying closer to their optimum levels, "but unless radar separation is implemented throughout the airways to Europe, it will make precious little difference to us because of the strong traffic growth," he adds.
In addition to providing air navigation services, the GCAA is also the regulatory authority in all aspects of civil aviation, including flight operations, airworthiness, security, airport operations and air navigation services. In its regulations, the GCAA is following the European Joint Aviation Authorities' requirements wherever possible because these are normally compatible with, but more specific than, ICAO standards, recommended practices and procedures.
Focused on airports' needs
The GCAA is an autonomous, government-owned organisation established in 1997 with a government cash injection of 100 million UAE dirham ($27.2 million). The chairman of the board of directors is the minister for communications, and each airport operator has a seat. "This keeps the GCAA focused on the needs of the airports and, in turn, the operators, while maintaining perspective in its function as state regulator," says the director general, Mohammed Ghanim Al Ghaith. He points to the efficiency of an operation which handled 260,000 movements in 1999 with just 30 controllers.
Originally, none of the profits were to be retained. The income generated by overflights, which accounted for about 90 % of the total, was balanced by the cost of providing a safe and efficient service. Recently however, the government has allowed the GCAA to increase its capital base to 300 million UAE dirham against the need for future investments, which confers the benefits of privatisation without losing the advantages of direct government links. "It is a huge step forward," says Al Ghaith, "because it means we are autonomous and can run our modernisation process with a speed and efficiency that was not possible before."
While the GCAA charges about 60% less than Eurocontrol, Johansen hints that a "slight increase" may be necessary to hedge against future investments. "We're having to think long-term, to the end of the ACC lifetime in around 2010. The current Airsys Watchkeeper equipment was installed in late 1997, but in 13 years there will be real difficulty getting spares. For instance, we're already stockpiling computer cards against that problem."
Immediate plans are for Watchkeeper to be upgraded to Eurocat 2000 standard in 2002.
Source: Flight International
